Jackpot (Nameless Dectective) (20 page)

Except for the two night-lights, Lobo Point remained a slumbering expanse of black and silver as we passed out of sight.

WE TOWED the
Arthur III
a third of a mile north by northwest, so that we were well out into the lake before we shut down and boarded her. I was dried off and dressed by then, still a little chilled but no longer shivering. I might have a head cold tomorrow, but that was a small price to pay for a nocturnal swim in Lake Tahoe.

The first thing we did was to don gloves and transfer Jerry Polhemus’s corpse from the Chris-Craft, where it had lain all the while under the canvas cover, to the short rear deck of the Bayliner. The body was wrapped in the tarp John Wovoka had provided, its end tied and affixed with some pieces of heavy scrap iron we’d found. In with it was a bundle made up of Polhemus’s clothing and wallet and the cassette tape he’d recorded. His Saturday night special, the gun that had ended his life, was in the pocket of my topcoat—for now.

It took John Wovoka a little less than ten minutes to cross the
Arthur III
’s ignition wires. When he had the engine running smoothly, I got back into the Chris-Craft and cast off the lines and used the emergency oar to shove clear. He put on the cruiser’s running lights, opened the throttle; the course he set was due west. I followed at a distance of a hundred yards. And after we’d gone a mile or so, I took Polhemus’s revolver out of my coat and dropped it overboard.

The place we’d picked to abandon the
Arthur III
was a quarter of a mile outside the entrance to Emerald Bay. There were no private homes in the immediate vicinity, for one thing; and Emerald Bay was a popular fishing spot, for another. It was still early enough, though, so that there were no other boats around when we neared the area.

When John Wovoka cut the Bayliner’s lights, I followed suit with the Chris-Craft’s. He chopped the throttle at the same time, so that the
Arthur III
settled into her own wake. I moved up alongside at low speed, cut to idle, and held there for the five minutes or so it took him to undo the hot-wire on the cruiser’s ignition. When he finally clambered down beside me, I let him take the wheel and us away from there.

That part of it—the worst part—was done.

THE FIRST LIGHT of dawn was in the sky, a line of salmon pink above the eastern peaks, when we reached the beachfront at Paradise Flat. John Wovoka eased the Chris-Craft into the shelter, and I tied up while he undid his second hot-wire; then we covered the boat with its fitted piece of canvas. Except for the amount of gas we’d used, there was nothing to arouse the suspicion of the owners when they returned from their European vacation. And the fuel loss was likely to pass unnoticed.

Inside the house, we packed up everything that had belonged to Polhemus. While I carried his luggage out to the Cougar, John Wovoka placed an anonymous call to the El Dorado County Sheriff’s Department, claiming to be a fisherman and saying that he had spotted a boat adrift outside Emerald Bay and that there was “something funny” lying on the deck. That would bring a patrol boat out in a hurry.

With my handkerchief I smeared all the Cougar’s surfaces, inside and out, that either of us might have touched. I was putting my gloves back on when he emerged from the house. He said, “No problem,” and got into his pickup. I slid in under the Cougar’s wheel. Neither of us wanted any part of a thirty-mile round-trip drive, as tired as we both were, but it had to be done. And done now, while it was still too early for most residents and early vacationers to have left their beds for the new day.

The Cougar had a chattery clutch and loose steering; there was sweat all over me when I finished negotiating the bad stretch of cliffside road around Emerald Bay. The radio, tuned loud to a rock station, and the open driver’s window helped me stay alert the rest of the way to Fallen Leaf Lake. John Wovoka followed close behind, but when I pulled off onto the platform above the Polhemus cabin, he went on along the road to turn around somewhere farther on, even though there was no other traffic and nobody afoot in the vicinity. It was better, safer, if his truck wasn’t parked next to the Cougar for even a few minutes.

I set the door locks on the car and managed to transport the three pieces of luggage down the stairs in one trip. I unlocked the cabin door with Polhemus’s key, took the suitcases and duffel bag into the bedroom Polhemus had occupied; opened one of the cases on the floor, put his key ring on the dresser. In the front room I gathered up the remaining snapshots from the fireplace mantel and stowed them in my jacket; I would dispose of them later. Then I hurried out, leaving the front door unlocked this time.

John Wovoka was waiting when I came up onto the road. Still nobody around. I got in beside him and laid my head back against the seat and closed my eyes as we moved off. He didn’t say anything and neither did I.

Now the frame was complete.

It was not perfect, particularly not if Welker reported the
Arthur III
missing before the California and Nevada authorities got around to bracing him. He had money and connections; he could buy a good criminal lawyer if he didn’t already have one; chances were he could beat a murder charge. Still, the frame was tight enough to make things rough on him for a while. Maybe even put him in bad with the higher-ups in the Mob, because of the negative publicity. His boat, with a dead man on board all trussed up and ready for disposal into the lake; evidence on the corpse that implicated Welker as a known Mob figure and gave him a plausible motive for homicide. It would look like he’d killed Polhemus himself, or had it done by one of his hirelings, and something had happened to the guy he’d sent out to dump the body: fell overboard, maybe, and drowned. Tahoe is a deep lake; the bodies of drowning victims aren’t always recovered. No key in the Bayliner’s ignition—but that could have gone overboard, too, in the missing pilot’s pocket. Thin, sure, but it made as much sense as any story Welker could tell to contradict it. More, because of the prima facie evidence.

Welker would figure that maybe I’d had a hand in the frame; I was a logical choice. He didn’t know John Wovoka existed, nor would have any reason to suspect him if he did. He knew about Janine and Wendy, of course, but he wouldn’t credit either of them with the guts or intelligence to build this kind of frame; the odds were good that he wouldn’t send anyone around to hassle them, or mention their names to the authorities. He also had no reason to suspect Scott McKee of complicity, or Allyn Burnett or Karen Salter.

But he’d have doubts about me, too. He knew my reputation, my working methods; I was not a man to circumvent the law; I was neither a hardcase nor a murderer. One man couldn’t have done the job alone—and who’d help me? Not Eberhardt; Welker would know that as soon as he had some checking done. And as far as he was aware, I had no personal stake in framing him in such an elaborate and violent way. Yeah, he’d have doubts, all right. Enough, maybe, to make him focus his attention on his own people—somebody who had a grudge against him, or somebody with too much ambition, who knew about Burnett and Polhemus and the stolen money.

In any case, I could expect him to do one of two things about me: put the law on me to help take the heat off himself; or send Jimmy and Carl or their equivalent to pay me a visit. I had an ace in the hole either way. In Polhemus’s wallet, bundled with the other stuff inside his shroud, was one of my business cards. That card would bring the law to my door whether or not Welker gave them my name. When they came I would tell them about my investigation—just enough of what I’d found out to further implicate Welker—and about being brought to his home against my will, and about his threats; then I would hang my head and admit, ruefully, that the threats had scared me right off the job. Me want to buck heads with the Mob? No sir!

That would accomplish two purposes. First, it would give me a measure of personal security; if anything happened to me, the authorities would look right at Welker. And second, it would put one more doubt in Welker’s head. If I were responsible for the frame, or mixed up in it, why would I implicate myself? Why would I make myself a target? His opinion of me was low, but not low enough so that he considered me a fool.

It was all a calculated risk—I had no illusions about that. Any number of things could go wrong; the whole crazy scheme could fall apart at any stage and I could wind up dead or in jail. So was it worth it, really, what John Wovoka and I had done? Here, looking at it rationally in the cold light of day?

I thought about Welker’s evil arrogance; his contempt for people like me and John Wovoka, basically honest people who prefer to live our lives within the law and without harming others; the opulence in which he dwelt and the people he surrounded himself with and where the money had come from to pay for all of that; the things he and his kind had done to David Burnett and Jerry Polhemus and God knew how many others. And then I thought about him squirming, sweating, confused, struggling blindly to patch the leaks that had suddenly sprung up in his protective dike; and of the dike maybe collapsing and washing him right out to sea.

Was it all worth it?

Christ, yes, it was.

WHEN WE CAME UP along the rim of Emerald Bay, I had a clear look out to where we had abandoned the
Arthur III.
There was another boat alongside her now, and the ant-figures of men swarming over her polished surfaces.

It was just sunrise.

SOFT GOLDEN LIGHT on Tahoe’s placid surface and in the woods surrounding the Paradise Flat house. The clouds had all blown inland and the sky was a sweep of blue with green and brown and white-tipped mountains in sharp relief against it. The wind had died and there was warmth in the air already: another nice day coming up, a harbinger of the summer to follow.

I did not want to spend any more of it in that house and I was sure John Wovoka didn’t either. But we were both exhausted, badly in need of sleep, and we had no other place to go. I offered to let him have the spare bedroom, but he said he would sleep on the couch in the living room; neither of us wanted the bed Janine and Polhemus had shared.

I shed my clothes and crawled between cool sheets and slept immediately. Slept deep, without dreams—or at least without any dreams I remembered when I awoke a long while later.

One-thirty in the afternoon, by my watch. Muggy in the bedroom and the rest of the house. And John Wovoka and his pickup both gone.

Long gone, I thought. Back to Pyramid Lake, to be with his daughter. Maybe he could persuade her to stay there with him, continue to shield and protect her; for her sake and his, I hoped so. No miracles, no, but perhaps there was a little magic in his life after all. A little white magic to offset the black variety we had performed last night.

I was glad he hadn’t left a note or awakened me. We had nothing more to say to each other, not even good-bye. Two strangers, with little in common, thrown together by circumstance—commandos on a raid into enemy territory. The sooner we forgot each other, the sooner we could forget what we had done together in the name of justice.

In ten minutes I was dressed and out of there and into my car. Like John Wovoka, going home.

ALLYN BURNETT SAID, “I don’t believe you.”

“I’m sorry, Ms. Burnett, but it’s the truth. You can check with the Nevada Gaming Commission yourself. Your brother didn’t win that money gambling.”

“But criminals ... organized crime ... no, not David. I just don’t believe it.”

“I didn’t say he was mixed up with organized crime. I said the two hundred thousand was Mob money and he came into possession of it somehow.”

“But you didn’t find out how.”

“No,” I said, “I didn’t find out how.”

We were sitting in the living room of Kerry’s apartment, Kerry and I on the couch, Allyn in the wing chair across from us. It was a little past eight Friday evening and I had been back from Lake Tahoe a couple of hours. I’d called Kerry from Tahoe City, before making the long drive back, and asked her to have Allyn meet me here at eight o’clock.

I didn’t blame Allyn for balking at what I had told her. It was a hard thing to accept about a brother you loved and thought you knew so well—but not half as hard as if I’d told her everything I’d uncovered about David. The partial truth was shocking; the whole truth, if she ever got wind of it, would lay her low. Her and Karen Salter both. But they weren’t going to get it from me. I was not in the business of hurting people, good people, and I would have kept my mouth shut about David’s theft of money from a dying man and his double life even if I did not have a vested interest in doing so.

Allyn said, “You’re not even going to try to find out? You’re just going to quit?”

“I’m only one man, Ms. Burnett.”

“You’re afraid of them, aren’t you? Those people?”

“Aren’t you?”

“Not if they killed my brother.”

“They didn’t kill him. I told you that. I think they pressured him to give back the money, yes; I think they threatened him. But he took his own life out of fear.”

She wagged her head stubbornly. “It wasn’t the way you say. It
wasn’t.”

“All right, then. Have it your way.”

“I won’t pay you any more money. Not to tell me things like this, lies.”

“I don’t want any more of your money,” I said. “I can’t do anything else for you. Nobody can. It’s finished. Your brother’s dead; nothing anybody does now can bring him back.”

She was on her feet, frustrated and angry. There was nothing I could do about that, either. She said to Kerry, “You said he was a good detective. Well, he isn’t. He’s ... he’s ...” She couldn’t think of anything damning enough to say about me. So she turned abruptly and stalked away into the hall.

Kerry went after her. I heard them talking in low voices, saying things that I closed my ears to; then the door slammed and pretty soon Kerry came back. She sat on the couch again, closer to me than before.

“You didn’t tell her everything, did you,” she said.

“What makes you think that?”

“I know you and the way you operate. You think I don’t?”

“I know you do.”

“Besides,” she said, “I stopped by your apartment last night and listened to the messages on your answering machine. Three times to the one you made yourself from Reno.”

“Why’d you do that?”

“I thought maybe there was a call you’d want to know about right away. Do you mind?”

“No,” I said, “I don’t mind.”

“There is more to it than what you told Allyn?”

“If there is, I’ve got a good reason for keeping it to myself.”

“And for not confiding in me, either?”

“Yes.”

“It’s that serious?”

“It’s that serious.”

We were quiet for a time. The night was cold, foggy, wind tugging at the weather stripping around the windows—another fine San Francisco summer in the offing. She’d set fire to a Pres-to-Log on the hearth grate and it threw a flickery, blue-flamed light into the room. Warm. Cozy. It was good to be home.

At length she said, “Did you listen to the tape when you stopped by your flat?”

“The answering machine tape? No.”

“Well, Bruce Littlejohn called three times. He’s desperate to have you call him back. That was his word—desperate.”

“Christ. I thought I was rid of him.”

“No such luck. He said Frankie Eldorp is out and an even bigger name is in. Somebody from your generation.”

“My generation. Great.”

“He didn’t say who it is.”

“That figures.”

“He also claimed to have a scriptwriter who was once nominated for an Academy Award.”

“Yeah. The Lunatic Academy.”

I got up to use the fireplace poker on the Pres-to-Log. To hell with Bruce Littlejohn; to hell with Frankie Eldorp and the somebody from my generation and the Academy Award nominee. To hell with La-La Land.

When I returned to the couch, Kerry said, “Eberhardt asked Bobbie Jean to marry him again.”

“No surprise. She must’ve said no or you’d have told me before this.”

“She didn’t say no. She said she’d think about it. She’s going to say yes.”

“She tell you that?”

“She didn’t have to. A woman knows when another woman is ready to say yes to a marriage proposal.”

“You really think so, huh?”

“Yup.”

“I hope you’re right. She’s good for him. He needs a good woman around.”

“Yes he does.”

“So do I,” I said.

She didn’t say anything.

“Don’t worry, I won’t propose to you again.”

“I wasn’t worried,” she said.

I said, “Is there anything else you want to tell me or talk about?”

“I can’t think of anything.”

“Good. Then what I’d like to do now is make love.”

“Oh, it is?”

“Yes. Very much.”

“Just like that? Tarzan want mate with Jane, Jane obey?”

“No,” I said seriously. “I missed you and I want to be with you. I want to hold you.”

She looked at me for a little while, in that soft way she has. Then she said, “Tarzan follow Jane,” and got up and went into the bedroom.

WE LAY IN THE DARK, holding hands. We seldom talk much in the immediate aftermath of lovemaking; it’s a time for quietude, for silent sharing. Neither of us had spoken for five minutes when Kerry said, “I’ve been thinking about this so I might as well say it. Please don’t take it wrong.”

“I won’t.”

“You’re ... different, a different person these past couple of months. And I don’t just mean the anxiety attacks. You know?”

“I know.”

“The changes ... well, they’re subtle. But they’re there. I’m not sure I understand you as well as I used to.”

“That makes two of us.”

“Do they worry you, the changes?”

“Sometimes. Do they worry
you
?”

“Yes. For your sake, but for selfish reasons too. Because I resist change and I wish you were just the way you used to be.”

“Does it matter to you that I’m not?”

“Matter in how I feel about you? Of course not.”

“I was afraid it might.”

“Don’t be afraid,” she said. “Deep down, you haven’t changed at all. You’re still the same good, kind, gentle, caring man I fell in love with.”

Am I? I thought. I’m not so sure.

But all I said was, “I hope you’re right.”